the rehearsal dinner:
the rehearsal itself went pretty quickly. ann marie carried the ghastly bouquet i made for her at her shower. the priest who performed the wedding was very young and adorable and it was his first wedding. he mentioned that he had asked his priest friends for advice and suggestions. towards the end, he mentioned that he would be around for a while for confession in case anyone needed to confess before taking communion the next day, and jen got a text message from her sister (sitting on the other side of the altar) saying "i can't go to confession with him. i'll go to hell for molesting a priest!"
the dinner itself took forever. it was at rudar club, a croatian place in queens, and they didn't seem to care that AM and bob had asked them to make it a quick dinner. there was at least half an hour between each course, but the food was pretty good--nothing special but solidly good. the best/worst part was when we first got there. i don't remember if i ever wrote about it in here, but at the beginning of the bachelorette party, gill, allison, and i were waiting in the hotel lobby for jen. allison and i were sitting and gill was standing. all of a sudden she started scratching at her neck and i saw something fly off--a giant waterbug that had fallen from the ceiling. gill was horrified, but we all promised not to tell ann marie in order not to ruin her bachelorette party. anyway, at rudar, gill put her bag down in a corner when we got there. five minutes later when she went to get it, there was an almost-dead waterbug next to it, on its back with its little legs in the air. she looked nervously at the chandeliers for the rest of the night but was ok once she was plied with wine. allison and i made plans to meet up the next morning and went home.
the day of the wedding:
i was supposed to wake up at 7:35. instead, i woke up at 8:30 to allison ringing my doorbell. she called ann marie to redo our plans while i showered, and we jumped in a car service to meet everyone at studio z in bayside to get our hair and makeup done. this was . . . an adventure. ann marie's hair looked great. allison got her hair done by the owner, and hers looked great, too. mine was done by an extremely gay, 40ish hispanic man named ernesto who did a great job but freaked a little when i told him my hair was too high and i wanted it flatter. but he did it anyway. jen and gill had problems though. the owner spotted jen halfway through the process and re-did her hair. gill's hair got redone five minutes before we left because it was weirdly bumpy. and the makeup woman, who had a terrible stripey raccoon blond dye job, took forever and used the makeup like it was spackle, but it all worked out in the end, albeit 30-45 min later than it was supposed to, and we left. going to the car a woman and her husband shouted out "congratulations" to ann marie from their balcony and told her it was their anniversary, which was sweet.
we got to the hotel and i made everyone turkey, mozzarella, and tomato sandwiches in the space of five minutes which we wolfed down, and then we got dressed and got in the limo, all in less than 45 minutes. and then it was off to the church!
the actual wedding was a lot quicker than i thought it would be, even though it was a full mass (though allison's mom later said they left some stuff out). before i knew it, it was over, and we all gathered outside to blow bubbles and take pictures. then everyone else left and there were more pictures. then the entire bridal party plus the bride and groom (10 people) piled into a limo meant for maybe 7 people and went over to flushing meadows park to take pictures. this was a part that could have sucked but didn't, largely because everyone was in a good mood and by this point all of us bridesmaids were pretty tight (i mean, aside from me and allison who were already tight, obviously) and we were having fun with the groomsmen in the limo. i was the only one not drinking, mostly out of sheer terror that i would spill something on my dress (jen's dress had already suffered from the flower girl and the bubbles). we took a bunch of pics, including some with a police horse and some with two little girls who were gazing longingly at us (one of them, after being allowed to hold a bouquet, told AM "you look really cute today"), and then got back in the limo where we also had to come to blows with another wedding party that was leaving terrace on the park as we pulled up. so we waited in the parking lot for a while and then went in.
we went straight to the bridal suite off the main reception area, where we had our own food and drinks and bathroom. after relaxing and stuffing our faces for a while, we went down to the cocktail hour briefly and then came back up to wait for our grand entrance into the reception.
the rest of it is almost a blur of dancing and drinking. the entire bridal party met at the bar for shots after the speeches, and i think there was at least one bridesmaid on the dance floor the entire night, if not three or four. i am not a great dancer, but i am not terrible, and the band was awesome and we just had a lot of fun, getting really into it. the best part of the evening was the slide show, which had photos not only of ann marie and bob but of me and gill and allison and andy and kate and oj, ann marie's cat.
of the food, the best parts were the penne vodka from the cocktail hour and the viennese dessert table which had every kind of dessert you could possibly imagine.
the number one thing that i did not expect to enjoy as much as i did was carrying a bouquet. i want to carry a bouquet around every day. also, wearing the same dress as three other people wasn't weird at all. in fact, i kind of liked being easily identifiable as a bridesmaid, like, everyone knew that the bridesmaids were on the dance floor the whole time and having fun and stuff.
anyway, the best part is the photos (photos of rehearsal dinner and getting ready to come from allison):
http://flickr.com/photos/ericabrooke/sets/72157606972023954/
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